The Digital Week

Welcome to Porter Novelli’s weekly digital news post.

By now, you’ve heard of Google Buzz. Buzz is Google’s new service for “sharing thoughts, multimedia and your social media feeds” (Mashable) through Gmail. While the tool is undeniably powerful and is technologically impressive, it actually doesn’t seem to have gone down too well.

Concerns and doubts seem to have centred on two areas. First, what’s the point? We already have Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed – well, some of us have FriendFeed. So while Google’s arguably doing the right thing by trying to own this space, the service it introduces has to offer a lot more than the ones already in place. Neville Hobson identifies the key difference: search.

And second, what it does – or rather did – offer, was a staggering lack of privacy. Buzz was launched last week and automatically connected users with their most frequent contacts in Gmail. This is clearly a slightly dim idea, and this is why. I use Gmail in my life as a football blogger. Therefore, most of the mails I send from my account are responses to crap PR pitches. So why on earth would I want to ‘connect’ with these people?

The more sinister problem comes when Buzz compromises someone’s physical safety. This became real when an anonymous blogger (I would link to the blog but it’s now protected – I’m sure that’s Buzz-related), who uses Gmail to talk to her boyfriend and mother but receives regular messages from her abusive ex-husband, became connected to him and to contacts from her anonymous blogging role within Buzz. Bad form, Google.

Google’s now tidied up much of the mess, but all in all it’s been a poor week in reputation terms. Google took a hit at the end of last week when it killed some leading music blogs (hosted on Blogger) due to copyright infringement. Fair enough, but some warning might have been appropriate. And following the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili before the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Google had to pull its luge-inspired logo thanks to an online backlash.

Prisoners kicked off Facebook

Facebook has been praised for its co-operation in a UK government crackdown to have abusive prisoners removed from the site. 30 inmates have been ejected from the site after using smuggled mobile phones to access Facebook and leave abusive, intimidating messages for their victims.

These charming chaps all had their Facebook access removed within a 48 hour period according to justice minister Jack Straw, who said he was reassured by Facebook’s willingness to help and acknowledged the need for further measures to be introduced. Several high-profile prisoners have used the site to brag about their crimes, life behind bars, and their release. Nice.

Paperchase takes a beating

UK stationer Paperchase is the latest big brand to have discovered itself in the eye of a Twitter storm. After allegedly using the work of an independent artist for a marketing campaign without permission, the brand quickly became a global trending topic on Twitter. Paperchase’s response was painfully slow and rather weak, though it has now been fleshed out. After originally ignoring the artist’s request for her work to be removed, big name involvement was inevitable. In this case, it was Neil Gaiman who kicked the storm into overdrive.

Although many other brands have been in the same position, Paperchase had/has special circumstances to consider. They’re in a competitive market where people can buy from another brand at the drop of a hat. So while the storm is online, and the crime very much offline, the social media issue had to be addressed.

As always, the whole problem could have been avoided simply by not being stupid and NOT BEING UNDERHANDED!

Speed v Truth in the race for news

Will Sturgeon at The Media Blog reported on the reporting of yesterday’s tragic train crash in Brussels. He noted the difference in accuracy between ‘breaking news’ tweets from @BreakingNews and @ReutersFlash. The former reported (via the Associated Press, mind) that there were no casualties. Five minutes later, the latter reported that sadly there were 20. Reuters was five minutes slower, but infinitely more accurate.

It’s all part of a pet topic of mine, namely how social media can affect the way we consume news. The march of Twitter as a news-breaking force seemed unstoppable, but its speed now looks fallible thanks to @BreakingNews, a primarily Twitter-based channel and its necessity to beat the likes of Reuters to the punch.